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Activity: What are the costs of illnesses?
Objective Make students aware of the high financial and long-term costs of routine illnesses such as diarrhea. Time 15 minutes Age Group 6-adult What You Need *a place to write that students can read *optional: magazines with pictures of celebrities, athletes, movie stars, etc. Preparation Do the math first. Activity We have been talking about washing hands so you do not spread germs in poop. Why is avoiding poop and germs important? * It is disgusting to eat poop. * It is disgusting to serve poop to your friends and neighbors. * It is not nice to serve germs to your friends and neighbors. * You get sick if you do not avoid germs and poop. Why is it a problem to be sick? * Suffering or discomfort * Out-of-pocket medical costs * Lost earnings from patient and family members caring for the patient. Tell a story and do a spreadsheet on the total cost of diarrheal diseases in this school. * 5 illnesses a month * Miss 2 days of school per month * Parents stay home 1 day a month * 10 months a year * 100 students in this school For example: Q: How much precision can we expect for diarrhea episodes per month and cost of treatment? * Q: How much does did it cost you in time and money for transport, care and drugs the last time you took a child to the doctor? ** [expected answer: 50-100 taka for doctor, 50-200 for antibiotics (OR spend hours in line for public clinic, which may lack drugs) * The typical family with 3 kids will have more than seven ''doctor visits because the kids ate or drank poop! ** Not counting the endless drug store trips * Kids eating poop cost a typical family of three more than $10 – and that is if nobody gets ''real ''sick ** Do you know someone whose child was hospitalized? What happened? should be able to describe a week or more lost productivity as well perhaps of tragedy. Example of using published data from Bangladesh * According to ''Demographic & Health Survey, 2007: 10.6% of kids 5 and under in Dhaka had diarrhea in the last 2 weeks (p. 136). Of those, 17.3% sought advice or treatment from a health facility or provider (other than pharmacy, shop and traditional practitioner, p. 137). Key Words Activity, Prevention, Diarrhea Does disease matter? There are also longer-term effects of having so much diarrhea and germs Ask the class: What are your goals growing up? Option: Have students find pictures of their ideals in magazines. They will presumably pick out athletes, movie stars, and rich people. * Boys grow strong ** But what if they have diarrhea and cannot digest food? * Young men are handsome and attractive to girls ** But what if they have poop on their hands? * Girls are beautiful ** But what if they have parasites and therefore are scrawny? ** Do men want to marry wives who mix poop in with their dinner? * People grow well educated and rich ** But what if people are hungry and often ill and cannot study in school?